🌊 Behind the New Ocean of Master of Cladia

Hi Alchemists,

Today we'd like to show you one of the biggest visual improvements we've been working on: the new ocean.

Instead of building a physically simulated water surface, we chose a completely different approach.

Our goal wasn't to create huge cinematic waves.

We wanted something that works for a strategy game.

The ocean in Master of Cladia is built on a perfectly flat 3D plane viewed from an angled camera. All the movement is generated directly inside the shader.

The objective was to create a sea that feels alive while remaining easy to read during gameplay.

To achieve this we combine:

🌊 Layered procedural motion

🌊 Animated normal maps

🌊 Camera-relative lighting

🌊 A lightweight mobile version using procedurally generated tiled textures

This allows us to maintain the same visual style across platforms while using a richer version on PC and a highly optimized version on Android.

The geometry itself never moves.

Only the shader does.

The result is an ocean that feels alive without distracting from the strategy.

🎥 Here's a look at the current version:

View store page

We'd love to hear what you think!